2026 Stanford Doerr Discovery Grants

Multiscale evolution of rare earth magnet interfaces during electroleaching

PI: Carlos D. Diaz-Marin, Assistant Professor of Energy Science & Engineering; Co-PI: Xiaolin Zheng, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, of Energy Science & Engineering, and Senior Fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy

For over 40 years, the unparalleled performance of NdFeB magnets has led to their widespread deployment in critical technologies like electric vehicles and wind turbines. This exceptional performance has been achieved through a complex, multi-element recipe and a precisely engineered, multi-phase microstructure. However, this complexity severely limits recycling, leading to energy and chemical-intensive recycling processes that have failed to scale.

We will answer a fundamental, unanswered question: could we selectively and directly undo these magnets into their individual components? This process, if viable, opens new pathways to meeting rare earth magnet demand domestically, sustainably, and scalably.

Wildfire-induced alterations to organic matter entering drinking water facilities and resulting increased exposure to toxic aromatic byproducts

PI: William Mitch, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering; Co-PIs: Adam Pellegrini, Assistant Professor of Earth System Science; Nina Zhao, Acting Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Wildfires are expected to alter the quantity and quality of organic matter washing into watersheds, but the nature of these transformations remains unclear. When these waters are treated within drinking water facilities, the chlorine applied for disinfection reacts with this organic matter to form byproducts of disinfection (DBPs). Our objective is to characterize wildfire-induced modifications to organic matter and the resulting DBPs. The research would use leachates from 1) forest materials charred at wildfire-relevant temperatures under controlled conditions, 2) the same materials incubated in soil microcosms to mimic aging processes within forests, and 3) field samples collected from wildfire-impacted watersheds.

Anatomy of a battery fire: Decoding the toxic nanoparticle plume

PI: Xiaolin Zheng, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, of Energy Science & Engineering, and Senior Fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy

We are building a sustainable future powered by billions of lithium-ion batteries, but in doing so, we have inadvertently created the fastest-growing fire trend in our cities: the "Urban Wildfire." When these batteries burn, they emit a complex and highly toxic cocktail of particulate matter. Our goal is to answer this central question: How does the entire battery system dictate the size, chemical form, and ultimate toxicity of the emitted particles? Our primary deliverable is a predictive model to predict particulate matter information (e.g., size, chemical compositions) from real-world battery fires.

Fiber-optical shape sensing for geophysical applications

PI: Ettore Biondi, Assistant Professor of Geophysics; Co-PI: Olav Solgaard, Audrey S. Hancock Professor in the School of Engineering, Professor of Electrical Engineering

This project will pioneer geophysical shape sensing to observe and monitor the dynamics of Earth systems such as glaciers, faults, and volcanic regions. While fiber-optic shape sensing is well established in medical and industrial applications, its extension to geophysical signals represents an unexplored frontier. We will design and build a prototype three-component fiber-optic sensing instrument capable of resolving axial, bending, and torsional deformation. This high-risk, high-reward effort bridges geophysics and engineering to establish a new measurement paradigm, enabling distributed, three-dimensional observations of Earth-system processes with unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution.

Magma transport leading to explosive volcanic eruptions

PI: Paul Segall, Professor of Geophysics; Co-PI: Adrian Lew, Professor of Mechanical Engineering

How highly viscous, potentially explosive, magmas ascend through Earth’s crust is poorly understood. We will explore the hypothesis that a volatile-rich phase at the tip of a magma filled fracture (dike) allows viscous magma to follow. Whether a dike reaches Earth’s surface and erupts depends on a competition between dike opening and freezing of magma along the dike walls. We will create a finite element model of magma-filled dikes that couples elastic deformation, magma flow, heat loss, and solidification. We will determine initial states that favor eruption, as well as predicted surface deformations that can be compared to field observations.

Unearthing new ecological theories using whole community genomics

PI: Kabir Peay, Professor of Biology and Earth System Science and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment

Why do trees form partnerships with hundreds of different fungal species over the course of their lifetimes? We will answer this question by sequencing whole genomes across an entire community of ectomycorrhizal fungi in California. By generating more than 70 high-quality genomes over two years, we'll characterize the diversity of fungal functional strategies, how these strategies coexist spatially, and what distinguishes fungi found in young versus mature forests. We will focus on whether specific nutrient-gathering abilities determine where fungi thrive during forest succession. All genomic data will be publicly shared, creating a lasting resource for understanding fungal diversity and symbiosis.

Dimensions of climate risk uncertainty

PI: Jack Baker, Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering

Climate risk assessments combine models of hazards, exposure, and vulnerability, but we lack a systematic understanding of how uncertainty varies across these modeling choices. This project will create a comprehensive map of how uncertainty in climate risk estimates shifts across spatial scales (from parcels to nations), time horizons (historical to short- and long-term forecasts), and risk metrics. Using tropical cyclone risk as a proof of concept, we will identify which uncertainty sources dominate under different conditions, revealing where scientific refinements would most improve risk estimates and where inherent randomness limits predictability. Results will be published with open-source code.

Missing the target: The political effects of international environmental goal failure

PI: Hélène Benveniste, Assistant Professor of Environmental Social Sciences

This project investigates what happens politically when ambitious international environmental goals – such as the 1.5°C climate target – are not met. Combining historical analysis, interviews with environmental activists and NGOs, and innovative survey experiments, the research explores whether goal failure demobilizes action or sparks renewed engagement. By centering failure – a sensitive and understudied phenomenon – the project advances risk-taking inquiry aligned with the Discovery Grants’ commitment to frontier research with transformative implications for global environmental governance.

Identifying mechanisms and impact of biological dark carbon fixation in the ocean

PI: Anne Dekas, Associate Professor of Earth System Science; Co-PI: Kevin Arrigo, Professor of Earth System Science and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment

Biological fixation of inorganic carbon is the base of the global food chain and a major sink for carbon dioxide. This process is most often powered by sunlight via photoautotrophy, but some microorganisms can fuel it using chemical energy in the dark. Dark carbon fixation is currently poorly constrained, but is likely more biologically complex, widespread, and impactful than currently recognized. In this project, we will investigate permanently dark deep-sea samples with a suite of molecular and isotope-based approaches to identify which microbes are involved, how they get their energy, and how much they contribute to Earth’s overall carbon cycle.

Comparing apples to pinecones: A new approach to understanding the evolution of flowers

PI: Andrew Leslie, Assistant Professor of Earth & Planetary Sciences

Angiosperm flowers show an extremely diverse range of forms. Why such diversity evolved is an outstanding question in biology; one idea is that flowers are composed of more modular units than reproductive structures in other plant groups, which facilitates the evolution of specialized organs. Testing this idea is difficult because comparing morphological variation across plant groups is challenging using traditional morphometric methods. Here we develop a new approach based on combining high-resolution CT scans of flowers and cones with spectral shape descriptors, which allows for a more direct comparison of morphological variation across groups.

In search of canonical rocky shores through coastal imaging

PI: Christine Baker, Assistant Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering

Rocky shores support diverse intertidal ecosystems shaped by wave exposure and reliant on nearshore circulation for larval recruitment and dispersal. Despite their prevalence, nearshore processes in rough, rocky environments have received little attention compared to those in relatively smooth, sandy environments. This project’s overarching goal is to develop a unifying framework for classifying nearshore processes across complex rocky environments. We will characterize morphology, wave breaking, and circulation patterns with imagery collected from portable coastal camera stations along the California coast. This research lays the foundation for a generalizable understanding of rocky-shore hydrodynamics across sites and their role in coastal connectivity.

Learn more

Learn more about Discovery research at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability.